'You wanted to be like him'

Thursday

Dec 6, 2012 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - University of the Pacific music students on Wednesday said Dave Brubeck not only influenced their music and careers with his genius, but he inspired them with his kindness and social consciousness.

Michael Fitzgerald

STOCKTON - University of the Pacific music students on Wednesday said Dave Brubeck not only influenced their music and careers with his genius, but he inspired them with his kindness and social consciousness.

"His album 'Time Out' was some of the first jazz I ever heard in my life," said Chad Leskowitz-Brown, a 23-year-old New York saxman. "It's one of the reasons I became a musician."

Leskowitz-Brown played with Brubeck in 2009 while attending University of the Pacific. It was a wild ride.

"He must have been 89," Leskowitz-Brown recalled. "It was amazing how he was still playing at such an incredibly high level. He was just so high spirited."

Paul Bloom, 19, plays piano in Pacific's Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. He admires the way Brubeck stayed true to himself musically while innovating.

"There's always this playfulness and joy and honesty that I find in his music," Bloom said. "A lot of people try to play jazz seriously. Dave was serious. But Dave was always having fun."

Atkinson sang in the chorus when Brubeck performed his oratorio (jazz opera) at the 2006 Monterey Jazz Festival. Atkinson and his fellow chorus members had to make the wearisome drive back to Stockton every night during the festival's run.

Brubeck found out, "So he paid for our hotel room in Monterey out of his own pocket."

Brubeck's oratorios challenged racism. He once canceled 23 of 25 concerts in the South, and took a huge financial hit, when locals barred his black bass player. He toured internationally as an American goodwill ambassador.

Said Atkinson: "You wanted to be like him. Just seeing how he lived and what he did for people."

Another who experienced Brubeck's largeness of spirit is Noah Kellman, 21, a student and freelance musician in New York.

When he was 14 years old and living in Syracuse, Kellman applied for Brubeck's Summer Jazz Colony, a University of the Pacific workshop for elite high school jazz students.

And when Brubeck toured through Syracuse with his band, Kellman tried a long shot and asked stagehands for permission to present his musical résumé on CD to Brubeck in person.

To his surprise, he was ushered backstage. Kellman handed his CD to his idol.

"But Dave didn't stop there," Kellman recounted. "The day after the concert, when I got home from school, there was a message on the answering machine from Dave himself. He told me he and his band had been listening to my CD on their tour bus and they were really enjoying it.

"You can imagine that meant the world to me."

Tom Kelley plays saxophones in the Pacific quintet.

"The deeper you listen to his music, the more you find in it," Kelley said. "I've listened to his 'Time Out.' That album, even though it was successful commercially, the depth of the music on that album is just astounding. It's a true work of art. And in many ways it's unparalleled."